Vintage Kitchen Vixen

Cast Iron Cooking

Homemade Cast Iron Meatballs (how to make them Italian-style)

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Making homemade meatballs is a simple thing to do and so much more flavorful than buying frozen ones! Dust off your cast iron skillet and learn how to make your own italian meatballs from scratch.

cast iron skillet full of homemade meatballs

MAKING CAST IRON SKILLET MEATBALLS

First off, you don’t need a cast-iron skillet to make these homemade meatballs.

If you’re finishing off the meatballs in the oven, however, I do recommend using an oven-safe pan.

The reason I recommend cast iron? Because I’m a hardcore fan and think cast-iron cookware is the bee’s knees.

It’s easy to work with cast iron, it lasts forever, and it’s toxin-free.

RELATED: How to Cook with Cast Iron

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Sesame Naan Bread: A Cast Iron Skillet Recipe

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It’s time to pull out the cast iron skillet and learn how to whip up a batch of this sesame naan bread. It’s the perfect accompaniment for those winter soups and curries! 

holding a plate of sesame naan bread

CAST IRON SKILLET SESAME NAAN BREAD

If you’ve never had naan before, it’s kind of like pita bread that’s found in many Eastern cuisines.

When I think of naan, Indian is the first cuisine that comes to mind, but it’s one of many.

Traditionally, naan is baked in a tandoor oven, but since I don’t have one of those in my kitchen, I always turn to my trusty cast-iron skillet whenever I’m making a batch. This is also the case when I make flour tortillas and breakfast biscuits, so naan bread is a natural fit.

If you’re new to the world of cast iron cooking, you might want to read up on how to use cast-iron cookware, but if you know your way around cast iron, please, continue. Of course.

It’s also possible to use whatever pan you wish, but I hope you give cast iron a shot!

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Pork and Shrimp Burgers with a Spicy Asian Slaw

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Cast-iron skillet pork and shrimp burgers bursting with rich Asian-inspired flavours.

cast iron skillet pork and shrimp burgers

COOKING WITH CAST IRON

Pork and shrimp burgers are one of those recipes that grills up beautifully on a barbecue, but when it’s raining or freezing outside, firing up the barbie quickly loses its appeal.

As for non-stick pans, well, there are all kinds of problems with those, which you can read about in my article on cast iron cooking.

The reason I love cooking up burgers in a cast iron skillet is that cast iron conducts heat really well and once seared, I can pop the pan in the oven and forget about it for twenty minutes while I do something else.

Have you tried cooking with cast iron yet? I swear, once you make the switch, there’s no going back. The toughest part is learning how to cook in cast iron and how to care for it.

PORK AND SHRIMP BURGERS RECIPE VIDEO

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The Best Brussels Sprouts Skillet (with bacon and parmesan)

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These pan fried and roasted brussels sprouts are cheesy, smoky and crispy. They also look great being pulled from the oven in a cast iron skillet. It’s the kind of side dish you want on your holiday table!

bacon parmesan brussels sprouts skillet

ROASTED BRUSSELS SPROUTS: YOU EITHER LOVE THEM OR HATE THEM

Bacon parmesan brussels sprouts are a terrific side for roasted meats due to the strong flavour that people either love or hate. If you would have asked me when I was a kid whether or not I wanted a scoop of brussels sprouts on my plate, I would have shook my head to decline.

The thing is, when brussels sprouts are overcooked, they leave a bitter taste in your mouth and an unpleasant memory if you’re tasting them for the first time.

Brussels sprouts should be green, not gray, and they should be a vegetable everyone reaches for, including children.

Vegetarians aside, who would turn down a dish with bacon and parmesan? The Panko bread crumbs also make them crispy, giving them an intriguing crunch factor.

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Flaky Kefir Milk Biscuits With Cheddar and Thyme (an easy skillet recipe)

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These kefir milk biscuits are wonderfully flaky. Made with cheddar and thyme, this easy skillet biscuit recipe is sure to be a hit! 

cast iron kefir milk biscuits

I like carbs. Give me a crusty loaf of sourdough bread or a rustic rye and I’m a happy gal. The local bakery is one of my happy places, and that’s what usually sits on the kitchen counter if I haven’t baked a loaf myself.

On weekends, bread plays an important part at the breakfast table, which is why I was distressed one Friday evening when I realized we were going into the weekend bread-less.

“It’s fine,” my husband reassured me, waving his hand. “I’m going to make biscuits in the morning,”.


“You’re going to make biscuits?” I echoed, dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “That’s ambitious of you.”


“Nah, it’s fine,” he insisted, waving his hand nonchalantly.

To my shock and awe, he set about to work the following morning and whipped up a batch of breakfast biscuits.

So I decided to make them better.

With kefir.

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A Cast Iron Cooking for Beginners (a basic FAQ)

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Cast-iron cooking is making a roaring comeback to kitchens everywhere. Learn how to season, cook, and care for cast iron cookware in this beginner’s crash course.

how to cook with a cast iron skillet

WHY SHOULD I COOK WITH CAST IRON?

Cast iron cooking is by no means a new phenomenon. It’s a centuries-old practice dating back to the 1700s. Vintage cast iron skillets await a new season of cookery while more and more people grow disenchanted with non-stick pans. Have you ever heard of perfluorooctanoic acid before? It belongs to a carcinogenic family of chemicals called PFAS (that stands for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl substances), and it puts the non in non-stick pan. The FDA just published their findings on PFAS, which you can read here. I also enjoyed this article summing up the FDA’s report.

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